Love, Like a Child
by JueJue
Summary: But love is also tangled, wavy hair, puffed and light brown with blonde highlights. Love is chocolate eyes and a small nose, a delicate chin, a shy smile and the musty smell of books in a library, distant in her memories.


An anon asked me to publish the dabbles/prompts i do on my tumblr page so here it is. It's nearly the same thing as whats on tumblr, save for some grammatical/fluency corrections. Please enjoy.

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**Love, Like a Child**

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Ron Weasley appears at their sandy doorstep on the fifth of September.

Fleur remembers because she was scrubbing the dishes then—a task she hated with her every fiber of her being. Bill had charmingly offered to cook the night before and, at the insistence of her husband, she relented. He chose to bake lasagna, an Italian dish, and it was divine. Only, they retired early and the cheese and sauce were forgotten, left to cake onto the iron cookware.

She's scrubbing the charred cheese off of the larger, main pan when the backdoor rattles open. Instead of hearing Bill's usual heavy footsteps and the fall of dirty, sand covered boots, she hears the sliding of shoes—two sets of them. Fleur can discern from the faint voices that one belonged to her husband and the other, Ronald Weasley.

The sponge falls from her hands, the pan clangs loudly onto the sink. Fleur only has to take three steps back before she can see Bill and Ron having a quiet discussion as they were taking off their shoes. Ron looks up at her with a expression mixed with shame and countless nights of uneasy sleep.

Fleur pulls her hair down from the high ponytail that it has been in all day, making herself presentable before greeting Bill and Ron. Nervousness lines her kisses against Bill's cheeks. Ron shakes her hand and she tries not to grip too hard. A thousand questions races through her mind, but she contains them allowing the brothers much needed privacy.

That night, Bill tells her that Harry and Hermione are searching for important artifacts. She wants details, answers and explanations but Bill relays only as much as Ron had told him. She bites her lip and her fingernails dig into the bedsheets when Bill says Ron left the group, for more personal—undisclosed—reasons.

She only asks one question.

_Can he go back?_

xxxx

Besides greeting Ron, she barely speaks to him. In the days that followed, he ate and slept violently. September broke into October then it was suddenly December in the blink of an eye. Bill regarded his younger brother with indifference, telling him he was welcomed to stay as long as he wished. Fleur had to bite her tongue when she heard him declare such words on the third day of Ron's appearance.

Ron Weasley was supposed to be with Harry Potter. Ron Weasley was supposed to be there for Hermione Granger. Ron Weasley was not supposed to be in her warm house on Christmas Day when the world could possibly end. But Ron Weasley stayed and Fleur stayed quiet.

Fleur's chest burned with urgency come February; she kept waiting for Bill to speak to his younger brother, to tell him to return to Harry and Hermione, to yell at him for his irresponsibly and recklessness. Instead, everything went stiff and still. For months the entire house was silent, only giving into the sounds of the waves and winds. Sometimes, when Fleur listened hard enough, the seagulls' cries would be heard.

xxxx

When they finally speak, it is March.

"Ron," Fleur says, trying to level herself. He looks up at her, surprised. "May I have a word with you?"

"Yes, of course," he puts away the wizard's chess quickly. Fleur sits down across from him, taking in the warmth of the fireplace. Fleur stays quiet for a little while, observing the ginger haired boy's disheaveled appearance. Despite being of age, with broad shoulders and a large stature, he is still a boy to her. In the silence, Ron grows nervous and plays with his fingers. "Is it about the cup I broke?"

Fleur shakes her head, already well aware of the broken china.

Ron smiles sheepishly. It angers her that he is smiling, that she is seeing him smiling.

"Would you like me to make you some tea?"

It angers her that he is here, in her home, when he could be elsewhere. When he should be out there, protecting his best friends. It angers her because she never, and will never, get the chance.

"No, thank you."

It infuriates her that Ron is a boy, a ginger haired boy, a boy that can like another girl, a boy that has the affections of Hermione.

"What is it that you wanted to speak about?"

It burns deep within her heart that Hermione will never look at her with the same longing that she does towards Ron.

"Go back to them," Fleur spits it out like flames that had been burning for ages. "They need you."

Ron's face contorts into one of pain and bitterness. "You don't know—"

"—you are a coward. An immature, unfaithful coward." She doesn't understand what Hermione sees in him and all his flaws, starting with his unkempt hair down to his clumsy, loud walk at night. Fleur does not and cannot comprehend how Hermione could love such a fool.

"Then they don't need me." Glassy, tear laden eyes looks at her with fierce pride and sorrow, "I'm always the useless one."

"But they _do_ need you." Fleur finishes, head raised high, "Because you are still their friends. They need you to be their mistakes and cowardice, to bare their flaws when they can't."

Ron goes silent, like the house for the past months. Fleur exits the room, satisfied with the look of pain and contemplation on Ron's face.

The ginger haired boy leaves the next day.

Bill is relieved. Fleur can breath again.

That night, she sits outside, watching the moon rise trying to ease the ache that's burned into her chest.

Love is a childish, Fleur thinks. It plays with its captives like a toddler with his toys; with complete disregard and without discrimination, completely unaware of its actions. Fleur thinks of love with kind hatred, knowing that she would be better and yet worse without it. Love is confusing in that way, a conundrum in its own right.

Love is the warmth of her family, of Bill's smile, of everything that she enjoys doing and the smell of coffee in the early mornings. But love is also tangled, wavy hair, puffed and light brown with golden highlights. Love is chocolate eyes and a small nose, a delicate chin, a shy smile and the musty smell of books in a library distant in her memories.

Love is hurt.

Tears fill line her eyes, cold when they fall onto her cheeks from a single, lonely gust of wind.

Love is saying those words to Ron Weasley, no matter how true or untrue they may be. Love is letting him return to Hermione. Love is letting Hermione stare at Ron with that secretive, longing glance Fleur would die to have directed at her. Love is quietly backing away and watching her own heart break.

People say that love is kind, love is patient. Fleur thinks otherwise. Love is a child. It needs and needs and even when its captors have given everything, love still begs for more. So Fleur gives, she gives her hand in marriage, gives her life to sandy sandals and a scarred face.

And when Fleur thinks she is spent, having loved and been loved in return, love asks for more. It asks for long forgotten memories of Hermione and hearts drawn around her name, it asks her to speak the words her husband cannot; it asks her to hurt a young ginger haired boy.

It asks for her broken heart to be crushed again so Fleur gives and gives until she is spent. And when she is, love delivers Hermione at her doorstep, sandy and broken.


End file.
